


Letters to Caroline

by Anne_Marie_Writes



Category: Poldark (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Letters, Prisoner of War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 21:03:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11321700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Marie_Writes/pseuds/Anne_Marie_Writes
Summary: A week has passed and Dwight was now certain that Hell was real and he was in it.  He'd seen more horror in his time in this camp than he knew existed in the whole world.  He couldn't really remember how it started but he had begun to compose letters to Caroline in his head, he was clinging to her as if she was his sanity itself.Or the three letters Dwight imagines sending to Caroline and the one she manages to get to him.





	Letters to Caroline

He knows he's only been here a matter of days, but time in this place is somehow distorted and it feels like he's lived a lifetime in this hell.

It was night and pitch dark, no candles were wasted on prisoners. He can hear the rats scratching around him, but he can't see them. There could be only one or two or it could be thousands. He feels that he understands why children are so scared of the dark, it conceals horrors from you and your mind imagines them worse than they are.

He thinks of Caroline, even though God knows he die a hundred deaths before he'd have her here with him, he couldn't stop the longing to hear her voice, to hold her in his arms. He had allowed himself to dwell on the thought of never seeing her again, but it was enough to drive him mad, and so he pushed the thought firmly out of his mind.

During the day he had little time for coherent thought anyway, but now as he lay awake he's mind was fully on Caroline and what he would give to speak to her. He didn't know if she knew he was here, if she even knew he was missing. Or if his last letter had made it to her. What he would give to write to her now.

-x-x-x-

A week has passed and Dwight was now certain that Hell was real and he was in it. He'd seen more horror in his time in this camp than he knew existed in the whole world. He couldn't really remember how it started but he had begun to compose letters to Caroline in his head, he was clinging to her as if she was his sanity itself.

My dearest wife,

He would start in his head as he lay on the floor, hungry and itching from dirt and lice, the smell of blood and sweat clinging to him.

It has been ten days since we where brought here. I have become numb now to the shock. I have lost more patients here than I ever thought to lose in my whole career. I have seen more mutilation than I knew a body could endure.

I think of you always, my darling, I think of you walking in the garden with Horace. I think of you drinking tea. Dull things, not truly fitting you and your vivacity but I find myself longing for dull now.

I pray to God to keep you safe, and that you do not know my fate. I wish blissful ignorance for you my love.

Until we meet again,

Your loving husband.

-x-x-x-

My dearest one,

How I long for you and grieve for you. It has been twenty days and I am no longer the man you married. I wondered if you should recognise me if you saw me. I had to distract myself from the thought.

You are a remarkable woman my love, it's been well over a month since you last heard from me. I do not doubt that you know something is amiss. I can only hope you do not know the truth, for the truth is pure horror. And I would shield you from it if I could.

  
I think every day of returning to you, shall it ever be so. I find myself in despair. The guards here kill for sport. I only have made it this far as my skills are useful.

I still have hope in my heart, while there is breath in my body I shall find my way back to you.

Yours,

Dwight.

-x-x-x-

Caroline,

Did we really marry. It's been forty four days since I was brought here. There was fever here in the past week. The number of men halved, the guards seemed glad. I caught it myself, and now I wonder if perhaps our wedding was just another of the hallucinations that plagued me as the fever rocked my body. I find I cannot decipher the real from the false. I feel I have been here forever. That everything before was someone else's life and not my own.

It is your face, I see it whenever I close my eyes, that is the one thing I can rely on to be true. No man could dream up such beauty.

I'd sell my soul to hear you speak.

Yours forever, weather we meet in this life or the next.

Dwight

-x-x-x-

Sixty two days inside the prison camp. Dwight wipes his hand across his brow and left a smear of blood amongst the dirt. He had tried in vain to save the man who had served aboard his ship, but he was dead, just like the rest of them. Not one man that had been here when he first arrived was still alive except for him. The prisoners were all new, and they too would be dead within two months. No man could live here, no man should. They took just enough care of Dwight to keep him alive, he was useful. Sometimes he bitterly wished they didn't, but then he would think of Caroline grit his teeth and carry on.

He stood up from the man he had been treating, a man beaten badly by the guards for daring to look at them the wrong way. Dwight had tried but he couldn't save him.

Numbly he stumbled across the room to a far corner and dropped in despair. This was a desperate place, he did not know have much more he could take.

A boot kicked at his shins.

"Enys." Said the guard in a thick French accent.

"Yes."

He wondered what new level of depravity would be revealed to him this time.

"For, you." The guard said stiltedly handing him a creamy white envelope.

Dwight new the hand instantly and he grabbed it like it was water and he was a man in a desert.

My dearest Dwight,

I cannot say how for I know others will read this before you, but I have seen the list and know where you are. I am writing this now with no idea how I shall get it to you. I shall sort that later.

Dwight, I cannot tell you what it has been like not knowing what happened to you my love. I thought marrying you was the greatest day of my life, but learning you were alive after so long not knowing was joy beyond what I can express.

Know that I will do all in my power to have you returned to me.

I will not give up.

We will be reunited.

You owe me a wedding night.

Yours always,

Your loving wife Caroline Enys.

Dwight read it through he knew not how many times, and finally stared for he knew not how long at the last two words 'Caroline Enys'. It was the first time he'd seen his name and hers joined.

He folded the letter, the greatest treasure he could own, and tucked it away inside his shirt, next to his heart, with Caroline until they met again.

He stood with renewed determination, he was going to get out of this alive -for her.

 


End file.
